


timeslip: Dana is burning

by macha



Series: Georgia on My Mind [28]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-22
Updated: 2007-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-18 11:52:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macha/pseuds/macha





	timeslip: Dana is burning

###  _B05.12.02 DragonHorde Wars: in the eye, we are blind._

and the name of the tale is:

### timeslip: dana is burning

that time he only waited until she came to say he said to her she has that right kneeling in front of her on the dojo floor and ever after he put his weapons down again but why could she see sunlight streaming in to collect around him although he never turned to dust. out, they were out in empty space he didn't need to breathe in neither did she in dream eyes blue eyes red flushed out the porthole spaced in time for tea no time. if space is the playing ground of dragonkind who then was kind when she and he were nothing but space no time before eyes golden drowning in light. only in dreams, and they are not today what they have been. and there are there were others. weren't there? so she took his arms, but he didn't turn to dust. and then his arms grew back. maybe it hadn't happened. or not yet. she didn't do it right. that's why it happened. do things just happen? does anything ever happen? could she know why? she'd asked him first, if he had done it. and surely that was fair. except he said he didn't, but then he said he had. she knew what slayers do, they hunt the creatures of the night. they do their duty. and they die. she saw him kill them, slayers. must have been weak. must have been lost themselves in the dark of once upon a time. was he lost too? why wouldn't buffy kill him just in case? maybe she didn't know. not right, she knew, but didn't kill him. what is a slayer for, that can't protect, that doesn't kill that only looked him in the eye even after he tasted her, after they held her down for him so he could drink he hardly did he didn't and she doesn't doesn't kill not him. not darla either, and not dru. and still called even to the dragon.

what is a slayer, then, who cannot do her duty? she must have lost her taste for it in him. what duty does she owe? but faith won't doesn't kill him kill them either. what does it mean, to slay, if it just means you don't, there must be something important she was missing. but what are angels, then, that she should see them always shining in the darkest dreams?

out, they were out, eyes red, eyes golden, drowning in light, not burning, still got the sizzle, he burning in, and out, not out, her too. she slams the door shut with him inside, slams the doors shut and goes, slams the doors shut with the wolf the wolves inside. that can't be right. one time dawn opened all the doors and buffy went all the way down, into the dark went naked into the underworld to get him back, where he still burned, and on the hellmouth she burned with him too. that other slayer had a chinese sword she lost to him, he took, in a different battle. there was a story, is it all just story? down in the cellar, underground, he had, she was, a cellar garden, buried deep, he didn't, she said he didn't know, he never said, he never argues what he was, he never did, even the day she cut she cut them both, he bled the way she bled as if he was an ordinary man, but not the one she thought he was. and sometimes buffy still dreams that dream now, and wakes up bleeding, and wakes up not breathing, looking for him as gone, although he's there, but why she doesn't say. maybe she doesn't know he's never gone, maybe she mustn't say that they are all of them dreaming all of it, this life, this world, this ship forever sinking into time, endlessly going down, beneath, below the ground. he cuts, and he is cut, but not in that order, order and method, what we dream must be a lie for her to say the way she did one time he is the sacrifice, he cannot help himself, he keeps the ship alive, he lets the dragon live, he brings the harvest in, he cannot be contained, dying he turns to seed instead of dust to feed the universe from which he took. what did she mean when she said it? if she could keep him out of it she would, but he will always kneel looking at her and waiting, maybe he doesn't know she has too far to go. but he is the freely given offering and all he ever offers up is what he is and where he's been.

order, there's something out of order, is there an order? doesn't the order matter? what must have happened first? all of it's in her head as all at once but what's a slayer made of, meant for, then? not reaching for the weapon that she needs to reach for, she that had died twice even before the planet died and could not rest, no longer all alone in the cold of space, don't touch, can't touch, no hands, to hold, go back, lie down, inject, keep cutting, see dust, see more dust, stop and go deep, go slow, cut through, and then don't stop, cut down, go deeper still. but no matter what she does or doesn't do, never in her dreams does he ever turn to dust, so maybe he can't end, but neither then can she. was he still waiting? in sparring practice she fights them all, except for buffy, she fights with angels and with slayers and with dragons, though not with witches they're not strong enough for that kind of company. and she can't fight with him because he won't, never with him she isn't strong enough they say she is they are, but maybe that's because he puts his sword down every time she dreams, he says a slayer has to reach for her weapon, and he already has his, got mine, ready but it wasn't him, he didn't do what she remembers, still he said he had done things like that and worse. and worse? what could be worse? maybe she could just ask him what he meant but then he wouldn't be just another ghost any more, maybe he'd just put another needle in, to make her slow or numb or sleepy, maybe he'd this time turn those golden eyes her way, and kill, and feed, like with the other one, the other ones, but he was here, why would he be here, standing beside her, as if that could ever happen, it wasn't right, the whole ship wasn't right, but even the dragon said that he was real, real when he bled and when he fought, real when he cried, she threw the money at him, real when he knelt. even the dragon knelt himself, in front of her, more than once, the golden one. and all he said to her was that she had to kill him because he didn't trust himself, she brought him her mother and her sister to protect instead, she'd had, he had a mother once, and said she loved him, it was the dragon who had the little sister. one drank too much, the other drank too little, one of the angels went to dust and yet came back again, drusilla killed the dragon in buffy's dream, illyria killed him too, dust unto dust, in fire in water, drank.

and yet this one sails the ship, and she lets him live. and he guards her back and he guards the doors but he never says he is not the thing he is, he only kneels in front of her in the great hall where he guards the doors, and says if you need to kill, kill me instead. and what is she to do with that? so she forgot to keep, forgot she had to keep cutting to keep on cutting till she saw dust, but she saw no dust, she didn't couldn't cut deep enough, cut up cut in cut down cut out. and then drusilla said, i know you now little sister. and buffy said i know you too, little sister. and faith said of course you are my little sister. and she could not, could not, remember what she had looked like, when he was kneeling there, waiting to die, waiting to turn to dust, that never came because he thought she had the right although he never did it, what she saw him do. he had a soul that bled, a heart that shouldn't beat, and the dragon said he'll just keep coming until everyone is dead, but that was the dark one, this one in dreams stretched out his hand and kept it in the light even when it sizzled, and said to her make it quick as he offered up his heart. and said to her i am i have no weapons now before you, and said with blue and then even with golden eyes you are i am the weapon meant for you to keep you safe, i am your hand, i have been given the sharpest sword, to cut the heart, i am the lesson, i have the cup i threw away, i give you everything i am that is i am the guardian of everything you love, i cannot do the things i do, i cannot be what i have been, i cannot go and leave you here. and out of that he made she made they made something that she would never understand. but still he kneels in front of her and says you have the right, take me, keep cutting till you see dust, but every time she raises up the knife he waits for her to choose, all that and more he said he'd done, in the past, or was it the time to come, and in the peace of his cellar garden, and yet and yet he chose her anyway to live and never die and he told them all he had the right to choose. and so uncut he burned, he was still burning, fire of fire they'd burned already anyhow, and never left her and wouldn't leave her all alone without the key, the way he left the dragon.

but what were angels, then, that they should weep for her, in spite of what they were and what she was, and reach on her behalf for light that burned?


End file.
